Manuel Duran, a broadcast journalist from El Salvador, has been detained at the LaSalle ICE Processing Center since April. He spoke with NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune in August about his time in detention.

An appeals court issued a ruling on Thursday (Nov. 29) in favor of Manuel Duran, a reporter from El Salvador who spent more than seven months in immigration detention at the LaSalle ICE Processing Center in Louisiana.

The ruling from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, grants Duran an indefinite stay of removal, which prevents the Department of Homeland Security from carrying out a deportation order while Duran appeals his immigration case.

Duran, runs a Spanish news website called Memphis Noticias and was arrested in April while covering a protest. He said in an interview with NOLA.com| The Times-Picayune in August that he believed he had been targeted by Memphis Police for his reporting on their possible collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the arrests of undocumented immigrants.

Memphis police has said that they do not collaborate with immigration officials. Duran has fought his deportation order since April, arguing that as an investigative journalist covering cases of corruption his life would be at risk should he return to El Salvador where there have been cases of violence against reporters. He said during the August interview that this was the main reason he came to the United States with permission in 2006 seeking asylum.

He was issued a deportation order the following year when he failed to appear in immigration court.

Appeals court judge Beverly Martin wrote in the decision that she was “mindful of the likelihood Mr. Duran-Ortega would be physically harmed if he is removed to El Salvador while his appeal remains pending.”

Duran was represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“We are grateful and pleased that the court acted to stay Mr. Duran’s deportation so that his appeal may be fully heard,” Kristi Graunke, the senior supervising attorney for the SPLC said in a statement.

The SPLC did not say whether Duran would be released from LaSalle where he has been detained since April while his attorneys work on his asylum case. As of Friday (Nov. 30) he remained detained at the center.

“The Department of Homeland Security could exercise its discretion to release him while his appeal is pending," said Graunke. "Detaining someone who has valid claims for immigration relief, is a valued community member, and presents no danger to the community or the public is not only cruel and senseless, it is a waste of money.”